Automated fluid injection devices, particularly automated needle syringes, have gained wide acceptance by industry and by the scientific and medical communities. This is because these devices are generally capable of dispensing very small, accurately measured quantities of fluid specimens on the order of a few microliters, generally a fractional part of a microliter. In the operation of these devices many samples are prepared in advance, the specimens placed in vials, the vials placed in a magazine, or tray and the samples run with minimal operating labor. Typically, e.g., septum covered bottles, or vials charged with a fluid specimen, are transported in seriatim via a magazine to a station adjacent a probe assembly, a needle of the probe assembly is projected through the septum of a vial and employed as a conduit to convey a portion of the fluid specimen to the barrel of the syringe. The circuit through which the specimen is conducted, and barrel and needle of the syringe are cleaned, purged and a quantity of the fluid specimen is measured out and injected via the needle end of the syringe into the inlet of an analytical instrument, e.g., a G.C. or mass spectrometer. More recently, specimens have been extracted from solids and semi-solids samples and analyzed in much the same way; i.e., the fluid, liquid, or solids specimens are extracted from a solids or semi-solids sample, the specimen then passed to a syringe or an adsorbent or other type of purge trap, and the specimen then displaced from the syringe or trap to the analytical instrument for analysis. The advantages offered by modern data gathering techniques, and consequent reduction in operating man power without loss in accuracy make these devices particularly useful in modern industrial establishments.
Automated apparatus for extracting fluid and solids specimens from solids and semi-solids samples for analysis is disclosed in Averette's U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,551 which issued on Sep. 15, 1992 to Dynatech Precision Sampling Corporation. This instrument departed from earlier models, such as disclosed in Averette's U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,845 which issued on May 07, 1991 to Dynatech Precision Sampling Corporation, which were designed to pick up from vials and process only fluid specimens for analysis. The later instrument, or instrument disclosed in the '551 patent, was adapted to extract for analysis fluid or solid specimens from weighed amounts of solids or semi-solids samples contained within one of the compartments of a compartmented vial. The compartmented vials were carried via a feed tray, or magazine, to a station adjacent to a solids preparation and extraction sub-assembly for processing and pick up of the specimen. Water, or other solvent, was added to the solids or semi-solids material in the upper compartment of the vial, the solids or semi-solids material was crushed and ground, heated, gas was fed into a lower compartment and passed through a frit into the upper compartment to extract the specimen for transport to an automated syringe, or purge trap for containment and subsequent injection into the analytical instrument. However, whereas this instrument has performed admirably, and has extended the field of usage of these instruments, in handling some samples excessive foaming occurs which sometimes interferes with the transfer of the extracted specimen from the compartmented vials. Additionally, inter alia, some simplification may be helpful, and it is desirable to eliminate the need of using compartmented vials for the extraction and analysis.